High court marshal seeks enforcement of anti-picketing laws
The marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court has asked Maryland and Virginia officials to enforce laws she says prohibit picketing outside the homes of the justices who live in the two states. Marshal Gail Curley took up the issue Friday with Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and two local elected officials. A Hogan spokesman said Saturday that the Republican governor had directed state police to “further review enforcement options that respect the First Amendment and the Constitution.” But he also noted that the constitutionality of the Maryland statute Curley cited has been questioned by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.
Uvalde schools police chief resigns from city council
Pete Arredondo, the chief of the school district police force in Uvalde, Texas, resigned as a member of the Uvalde City Council on Friday amid continued outrage over the slow police response to a shooting at Robb Elementary School in May. In a letter addressed to the city, Arredondo said that after much consideration, “it is in the best interest of the community to step down as a member of the City Council for District 3 to minimize further distractions.” He added that the mayor, the city council and the city staff “must continue to move forward to unite our community, once again.”
Texas Supreme Court lifts freeze on abortion ban
The Texas Supreme Court allowed a 1925 law banning abortion to take effect late Friday night, overturning a lower court ruling that had temporarily blocked it. The decision was the latest in a series of legal battles across the country following the Supreme Court’s decision June 24 to overturn Roe v. Wade, a nearly half-century-old ruling that had established a constitutional right to abortion nationwide. In Texas, that meant a 1925 law written before Roe that had banned abortions and punished those who performed them with possible imprisonment automatically went into effect, state Attorney General Ken Paxton said.
Google to erase more location info as abortion bans expand
Google will automatically purge information about users who visit abortion clinics and other places that could trigger legal problems now that the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door for states to ban the termination of pregnancies. The company behind the internet’s dominant internet search engine and Android phone software outlined the new privacy protections in a Friday blog post. Other places Google plans to erase from location histories include counseling centers and fertility centers. The move is made as Google and other Big Tech companies face escalating pressure to safeguard the sensitive personal information collected through their products.
Russia’s messages with missiles tell West to back off
The latest in a litany of horrors in Ukraine came this week as Russian firepower rained down on civilians in a busy shopping mall far from the front lines of a war in its fifth month. The timing of the attack was not likely a coincidence. While much of the attritional war in Ukraine’s east is hidden from sight, the brutality of Russian missile strikes on a mall in the central city of Kremenchuk and on residential buildings in the capital of Kyiv unfolded in full view of the world. The timing of both attacks appeared to be juxtaposed with three summits in Europe where Western leaders emphasized their support for Ukraine.
Japan’s secret to taming the coronavirus: peer pressure
Japan’s COVID death rate, just one-twelfth of that in the United States, is the lowest among the world’s wealthiest nations. Japan also tops global rankings in vaccination and has consistently had one of the globe’s lowest infection rates. Although no government authority has ever mandated masks or vaccinations or instituted lockdowns or mass surveillance, Japan’s residents have largely evaded the worst ravages of the virus. Instead, in many ways, Japan let peer pressure do a lot of the work. Social conformity — and a fear of public shaming that is instilled from the youngest ages — has been a key ingredient in Japan’s relative success in COVID prevention, experts say.
Searching for gold, miners discover a frozen baby mammoth
Travis Mudry was operating an excavator and digging through permafrost in the Klondike gold fields of the Yukon in Canada when a chunk popped out. Along with it was the body of a baby woolly mammoth, frozen and preserved with its hair and hide. Experts estimate the mammoth was just over a month old when it perished in mud. It was then captured in time, encased in the frozen layer of ground, during the ice age more than 30,000 years ago. The baby mammoth was about 140 centimeters from the base of its tail to the base of its trunk and might be the best-preserved specimen found in North America.
Palestinians give bullet that killed journalist to US team
The Palestinian Authority says it has given the bullet that killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to American forensic experts. The move takes a step toward resolving a standoff with Israel over the investigation into her death. Abu Akleh, a veteran correspondent who was well known throughout the Arab world, was fatally shot while covering an Israeli military raid on May 11 in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinians, along with colleagues who were with her, say she was killed by Israeli fire. Israel says its troops were in a battle with Palestinian gunmen, and it’s unclear who fired the fatal shot. It says the bullet must be inspected to understand what happened.
By wire sources